Documenting Native American Monuments at Effigy Mounds National Monument

A bear effigy mound, outlined in limestone
as part of an aerial photography experiment. NPS photo.

The eastern half of the United States has a wide variety of ancient and
historic earthen mounds, ranging from simple conical mounds to large platform
mounds and complex concentric circles. These earthen architecture structures
were built by many different American Indian groups over several thousand
years. In the Midwest, effigy mounds built in the shapes of bears, birds,
panthers, snakes and water spirits were particularly prevalent. These mounds
are primarily found in southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, eastern Iowa,
and southeastern Minnesota. They date to about AD 650-1200, and were probably
built by the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk and other Midwestern tribes (Goldstein
2009).

The mounds are commonly located on flat high areas overlooking rivers and
streams, especially where they intersect wetlands and lakes. These areas
afforded good views, and the mounds would probably have been visible from
long distances, especially if nearby trees were removed. Excavations of
mounds have uncovered human remains; besides burial sites, the mounds probably
also functioned as territory markers and as multi-purpose ceremonial places.

The lakes and marshes associated with the effigy mounds were productive
sources of food, especially in winter. The people who built and used the
mounds lived in small nearby villages. They hunted, fished, and gathered
wild plant products, but also had small gardens where domesticated plants
such as sunflower and squashes were grown.

Thanks to the foresight of energetic citizens, local politicians and community
leaders, some of these effigy mounds are preserved in parks. One group of
mounds is protected in a national monument. Congress and the President create
national monuments through the agency of the Antiquities Act, which allows
the Federal government to set aside public lands. Effigy
Mounds National Monument (NM), located on the Mississippi River in northeastern
Iowa, protects over 200 mounds of Native American origin, 31 of which are
bird and bear effigy mounds. The mounds still have much to tell us and new
technologies are revealing their secrets. The elevated perspective that
aerial photography and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) provide allows
more detailed and complete comprehension of the full extent of mounds on
the landscape than does terrestrial reconnaissance. The story of the documentation
and study of Native American earthen mounds is a fascinating chapter of
American archeology.

Background

Euroamerican settlers moving westward across the young United States could
not believe that the ancestors of Native Americans made the earthen mounds
that they encountered. The sheer size of sites such as Cahokia, in western
Illinois, and the expertise in delineating effigies such as the Great Serpent
Mound “snake” devouring an “egg” in present-day
Ohio, made it difficult to accept that the Indian communities that were
reeling from the effects of disease, displacement and colonization were
descendents of the people who had the capacities to carry out these massive
earth moving projects. (In a 20th century version of the dismissal of Native
Americans as mound architects, Erich von Daniken argued that animal figures
carved into the landscape in South America were made by extra-terrestrials
to be viewed from space.)

The very first publication of the Smithsonian Institution was devoted to
questions of the origin, antiquity, and identify of the moundbuilders. Ephraim
Squier, a journalist, and Edwin Davis, a physician, met in Chillicothe,
Ohio in 1845. They were both intrigued by the variety of ancient mounds
in the area, and began spending time together. Eventually, through the support
of the Smithsonian Institution, the two launched a large scale investigation
of mound sites primarily in Ohio and nearby Kentucky. The resulting book,
published in 1848, “is one long argument that the moundbuilders were
a race [with] deep historical connections to the semi-civilized peoples
of Mexico and Peru” (Meltzer in Squier and Davis 1998). These conclusions
met mixed reviews in scientific circles, and the identity of the architects
of ancient earthen mounds was not satisfactorily resolved.

More than thirty years after the publication of Ancient Monuments of
the Mississippi Valley, the Division of Mound Exploration, Bureau of
Ethnography, Smithsonian Institution, was established in 1881. The director
of the division, Cyrus Thomas, had four objectives: to identify the full
range of mound variation and to develop a taxonomy; to identify and investigate
the mode of mound construction; to examine the geographical distribution
of mound types; and to collect and analyze representative artifact assemblages
(Smith 1985:9). Over the 8 years of field work between 1882 and 1890, employees
of the Division visited over 2,000 mounds (Thomas 1985:108). This work culminated
in Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology,
adding to the growing volume of information about mound sites, which were
fast disappearing. The study conclusively demonstrated that the moundbuilders
were the ancestors of the living Native Americans.

The Creation and Evolution of Effigy Mounds National Monument

Between 1915 and 1929, Congressional representatives from Iowa introduced
into the United States Congress, on no fewer than six occasions, legislation
to create an Upper Mississippi River National Park. A park feasibility study
was finally authorized and approved on June 16, 1930. In 1931, the National
Park Service sent Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Roger W. Toll
to conduct the survey mandated by the feasibility study. The Toll Report,
which was completed on October 8, 1931, did not support the establishment
of a national park on the Upper Mississippi River. Despite this setback,
Toll’s report did sow the seeds for the creation of a national monument.

...Along the banks of the Mississippi River there are prehistoric
mounds built by Indians and used as burial places… It seems desirable
that some representative examples be preserved, since they are of great
archaeological interest to the present and future generations. (Toll to
NPS Director Albright 1931).

Almost immediately, the national park movement in Iowa became the national
monument movement. On October 25, 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed
the proclamation that created Effigy Mounds NM, which at that time consisted
of the Jennings-Liebhardt tract (South Unit) and the Yellow River Unit (North
Unit). Following the presidential proclamation, the NPS assumed management
of an additional 204 acres transferred by the state of Iowa to the Federal
government in 1951-1952. The Des Moines Founders Garden Club donated 40
acres, containing Founder’s Pond, in 1955. The 100-acre Ferguson tract
was added in 1961. Addition of the Sny Magill property doubled the number
of mounds within the monument in 1962. In 1999, the Iowa Natural Heritage
Foundation purchased the 1,000 acre Kistler-Ferguson Tract and transferred
it to the NPS, increasing the total size of the Monument to 2,526 acres.
The monument now contains 191 known prehistoric Indian mounds, including
31 bird and bear effigies, making Effigy Mounds NM the largest known concentration
of mounds remaining in the United States.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the National Park Service undertook many
archeological excavations of effigy and burial mounds within the Monument,
however when a mound is excavated, its value as a scientific object of study
is greatly reduced or destroyed. It was during this time that some people
began to question the wisdom of excavating burial and ceremonial mounds.
In 1959, Effigy Mounds NM established a policy prohibiting further destructive
investigations of the mounds, stating that in the future only nondestructive
testing methods would be permitted. By the 1970s the emphasis at the monument
had fully shifted away from archeological field investigations and towards
preservation and interpreting the mound builder story.

During the 1980s, another shift of emphasis took place, this time the transition
being from a more traditional “scientific” perspective to one
that viewed the mounds and associated landscape from a more humanistic perspective.
While the “science” of the mounds still mattered, the fact that
the monument was interpreting what modern American Indians considered to
be a “sacred landscape” began to be recognized. The passage
in 1990 of The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
promoted this shift, and subsequently opened a new chapter in the history
of the monument. This act requires Federal agencies and museums that possess
Native American human remains and cultural items to consult with lineal
descendants and culturally affiliated Indian tribes. Consultation and dialog
that began in the 1990s led to the development of long-absent connections
between the monument, its affiliated tribes, and the living descendants
of the Native American mound builders.

Recording Native American Mounds in Iowa

Traditional Mapping

Early archeological surveys documented the existence of effigy and other
types of mounds in the vicinity of the national monument that were later
obliterated by agricultural practices. During the 1880s and 1890s, Theodore
Hayes (T.H.) Lewis conducted some of the earliest mound surveys done in
the upper Mississippi Valley. Lewis worked for Alfred Hill on the Northwestern
Archaeological Survey, the most extensive, privately supported archeological
project ever initiated in North America. The Lewis - Hill partnership was
impressive: Lewis would conduct fieldwork and send his detailed notes back
to Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, Hill oversaw draftsmen and surveyors
who translated the notes into measured drawings. These efforts led to the
production of many superb maps of more than 2,000 mound and village sites
containing more than 17,000 individual mounds and earthworks.

Because many of the mounds that existed when Lewis was doing his survey
work in the late 19th century have since been obscured or destroyed, these
early sketches, summaries and maps are an invaluable resource in learning
about mound groups and locations that are no longer plainly visible.

Map drawn by Ellison Orr in 1910 of the Marching
Bear Group. Reproduced from the Ellison Orr Collection. NPS photo.

Ellison Orr also mapped mounds in Iowa. An accomplished surveyor, Orr began
to map mound groups and other archeological features in northeastern Iowa
in the late 19th and early 20th century. Working with his son Harry in 1910,
he created the “Pleasant Ridge Mound Group” map (i.e. the Marching
Bear Mound Group in Effigy Mounds NM) (Figure 1). Shortly after retiring
at the age of 73 from the local telephone company in 1930, Orr was hired
as chief field supervisor for the State Archaeological Survey. Dr. Charles
Keyes, director of the office, secured funding through the Federal Emergency
Relief Administration and the Works Projects Administration (WPA) to conduct
a series of archeological excavation and survey projects around the state.
Had it not been for Orr’s mapping skills and interest in the past,
much information about Iowa archeology would be lost forever.

A lifetime of dedicated recordkeeping led to the creation of 15 volumes
of reports, maps, drawings, photographs, diaries, correspondence, and other
miscellaneous papers. Through time, these works have proven to be an absolute
treasure to historians, archeologists, ecologists, and everyday people who
have an interest in the past.

Aerial Photography

During the 1970s and the early 1980s, Professor R. Clark Mallam and colleagues
at Luther College Archaeological Center focused a significant amount of
attention on recording and assessing the condition of mounds associated
with the Effigy Mound Tradition in northeastern Iowa. Because of the mounds’
low relief, frequently no greater than one to one-and-a-half feet in height,
they were exceedingly difficult to photograph. This led to an experimental
project in the early 1970s, where the Capoli Bluff Mound Group near Lansing,
Iowa, was outlined in agricultural lime and photographed aerially. In 1977,
a partnership was established with Effigy Mounds NM whereby the mound groups
within the monument was outlined and photographed. The result of this partnership
was the creation of the most well-known and visually impressive photographs
of any archeological sites from within the state of Iowa.

Photographs were also taken of other mound groups within the monument.
Photos of the Sny Magill Mound Group indicated the existence of 97 mounds,
more than had been recorded in earlier surveys. In 1980, Professor Mallam
and James Mount, Chief Ranger / Park Archeologist at Effigy Mounds NM, published
an article on their photographic research. In the article, Mallam and Mount
argued that by looking at them from an aerial perspective, the mounds could
be viewed as artistic creations which symbolically integrate prehistoric
beliefs and values.

Modern Methods

Archeologists have long dreamed of having a “magic window”
that would allow them to look into the ground to see what’s there
without having to destroy the site. Modern geophysics is moving archeology
closer to this dream. Geophysics is the study of the earth by observation
through its physical properties. Geophysical tools and techniques used by
archeologists today include magnetometers, ground-penetrating radar, and
LIDAR. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a tool that uses radar pulses to
“see” what is beneath the surface of the ground. This technique
has been used to non-destructively identify burial mounds or other archeological
sites that are not clearly evident to the human eye. LIDAR is an optical
remote sensing technology that measures properties of scattered light to
find range and / or other information of a distant target. In archeology,
it can be used to identify and create images of archeological sites.

Modern technology, such as LIDAR, ground penetrating radar, and proton
magnetometers are currently assisting researchers in uncovering a whole
series of tantalizing clues that may eventually lead to the identification
of “lost” effigy mounds that were thought to have been completely
destroyed. Small anomalies in soil properties and elevations, along with
advances in archeologists’ abilities to detect these anomalies, may
some day enable the reconstruction of a more complete and representative
effigy mound landscape. This research, however, would not be possible if
not for the foresight of citizens, local politicians and community leaders
to proactively protect and preserve the surrounding land as Effigy Mound
NM, ensuring that the mounds would be available to ponder their meaning,
to research and to enjoy for many years to come.

Meltzer, David J.1998 Introduction: Ephraim Squier, Edwin Davis, and the Making
of an American Archaeological Classic. In Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi
Valley, by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin H. Davis, Smithsonian Classics
of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.

Thomas, Cyrus1985Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of
Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC. (originally
published as Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology.
Twelfth Annual Report, 1890-91, Annual report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American
Ethnology, Washington DC, 1894)